Upon listening to this album, the listener familiar with the classic Norwegian black metal albums from the first half of the ninetiess will undoubtedly be reminded of Emperor In the Nightside Eclipse (1994). But apart from the way in which the keyboards are used for effect, the first Blood Stained Dusk is quite distinct in songwriting approach and in the crafting of individual sections. And while less clear and profficient in expression than Emperor, relegating the present release to a lower tier, Dirge of Death’s Silence is still a highly suggestive and imaginative work of black metal.(more…)

Cash grab alert! After giving the classic board room “fuck you” to cornerstone musician Abbath, the corporate conglomerate of Demonaz and Horgh have secured the legal rights to the band name “Immortal” and are now positioned to promptly squeeze their fans to blindly buy music and merch advertised as that of a Norwegian black metal legend. Although the pair have only played together on one album out of 12, they’re billing this as “the comeback of Immortal!” and have already gotten the infamously money-hungry Nuclear Blast records to set up the most overused rock n’ roll ponzi scheme.

Together, the pair have released a new song “Northern Chaos Gods,” the title/intro track of their first foray into commercialized rehash. So how did the miraculous (fake?) recovery of Demonaz’s tendonitis work out? Exactly how far into the waters of retro-rehash did the band wonder? Have they evolved even the slightest as musicians or do they remain forever trapped in the 90’s? As trust fund life-dropouts living in the woods at the expense of their family might say:

Another scandal! Yes folks, for the fourth time in the past two or three weeks, hipster journalists and fake metal fans are shocked and appalled that a black metal musician has done something immoral. Despite black metal being a music genre for 30 years, smelly neckbeard losers and dreadlocked trust fund crusties are figuratively (though literally in some cases) throwing their own feces every time they catch a mid-tier black metal musician doing something not socially acceptable. This time, the horrific act came from Marduk, whose purchasing of German World War II merchandise from a sketchy online retailer made them too evil for a fest called Stockholm Slaughter (who apparently think slaughter is cool, but just not when it pertains to 1940s Europe).

Because millennials are too dumb to learn any history that doesn’t involve student loans, let’s quickly look back and see if any criminal or immoral things were done by the original black metal bands. Maybe there’s something that we can learn from that fateful 1990s Norwegian scene:

A proper Hessian knows his metal music intimately. He understands the moving parts and how they fit together to form a functioning whole. Just as a Hessian understands his music, he will also understand his weapons. What better way to understand our weapons than to build one ourselves? AKs are rather easy to build, but require some more expensive specialized equipment. ARs are also quite easy to build, and because of their ingenious modular design, one can either build a complete AR or one can build half an AR for use with already extant other halves. Because building an AR lower is somewhat more complicated and requires some more expensive equipment, today we will focus on building your own AR upper. You will see from the crappy pictures, taken with my old flip phone, that one needs no specialized facilities to do any of this – I did it in my spare bedroom in about 45 minutes. Recommended listening while building: Immortal’s “Battles in the North.”(more…)

Immortal is back! Well… sort of. Halfway there. Right? In name at least?

You see, Demonaz- Immortal’s original guitarist during the 90’s, lyricist during the 2000’s, and now vocalist/guitarist and lyricist in the 2010s- is back with drummer-on-some-albums skinsman Horgh. Wait, actually, the two have only played together on one album (out of twelve) so can they really “be back?” Anyway, Demonaz and Horgh have out-lawyered the band’s drugged out drunken cornerstone musician Abbath, who played every instrument except for guitar when Demonaz was in the band and then played guitar over 9000 times better than Demonaz once the latter got a case of tendentious. With the name locked down and a healthy Nuclear Blast Records budget, the duo get ready to make a seriously play for the wallets of misguided fans.

But wait, the tendentious that crippled him for a decade is suddenly gone? Can he still pick at the rediculous guitar tempos of Blizzard Beasts? Can he even play at all? There’s a lot to unpack in this one, so let’s get trolling as we recap the story of the band who turned black metal’s creepy aesthetics into the hair metal of the 90s…(more…)

“Nothing gold can stay,” reminds us the poet Robert Frost, and this applies to black metal. Its gold occurred between 1991 and 1994, when its progenitors innovated a new style and took it to great heights, but after Burzum – Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, it became clear that black metal was not content to be a normal, rock-style music genre.

Immortal are recording a new album next month. Demonaz will be the primary songwriting for the first time in almost twenty years. Will the KISS of All Shall Fall continue with Abbath kicked out of the band for refusing to kick drinking and drugs? Will Demonaz continue from March of the Norse or Blizzard Beasts? Let’s find out!